Bernard Baetens
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Lisbon, Portugal
Toptal member since July 6, 2022
Bernard is a certified IT project manager and scrum master with a decade-long experience in various sectors, including governments, enterprises, and small businesses. He specializes in cloud and GIS and takes a human-first approach to align user needs with business strategy. As a natural problem solver and servant leader, Bernard manages teams efficiently to help define a long-term vision and achieve shared goals.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Cloud
- Cloud Infrastructure
- Geographic Information Systems
- Information & Communications Technology (ICT)
- PMI
- Servant Leadership
Work Experience
IT Project Manager Expert
Government of Flanders, Department of Mobility and Public Works
- Acted as the go-to IT project manager, technical project manager, and GIS subject matter expert for the department's business units of around 1,000 people when dealing with GIS.
- Devised and managed the overall strategy, product vision, and implementation of the AWS cloud infrastructure and dozens of application deployments and migrations.
- Conducted a GIS analysis at the business units, aggregating their information, needs, and desires into an aligned three-year strategy to obtain a more efficient and centralized approach to GIS with greater internal knowledge.
- Led and managed a yearly GIS program composed of more than a dozen projects to fulfill high-level goals regarding application areas (Data-Applications-Cooperation) and transversal themes (Innovation-Knowledge-Standards).
- Designed and implemented AWS cloud DevOps for the central landing zone.
- Organized the departmental information moments, webinars, and courses for GIS and cloud, including AWS and Azure.
- Managed a complex on-premise Windows-based environment migration project to the cloud with AWS Hybrid.
- Supervised several GIS migration projects that were open source to the central GIS infrastructure in the cloud.
- Contributed to managing data governance within projects and applications as a member of the departmental data team.
- Devised the strategy and managed the subsequent process optimization project for the topographic business unit, focusing on software, data, users and processors, and customers.
IT Project Manager
GEO Solutions
- Provided the project management and business analysis services and deployed RPA technology in the cloud as a proof of concept for an international enterprise to technically validate the setup and two produced automated workflows.
- Managed a team that provided SOA and technological agnostic microservices via external contractors to the city of Ghent in Belgium.
- Executed the business analysis and development of an automated workflow for the validation and transformation of the national toponyms of Belgium.
- Contributed to several national and international (European Union) requests for proposals, defining the potential supplier's overall project management and technical approach for the statement of work.
Project Manager
Vansteelandt
- Served as a technical lead and project manager for the internal and external surveying of all school buildings of the Flemish government via indoor mobile mapping and point clouds with data insertion in the patrimonial management information system.
- Managed the deployment of a web-based image and map viewer for the Flemish government's school system in cooperation with several international sub-contractors.
- Led complex projects for eight years with several international sub-contractors to deliver and update the Flemish government's large-scale reference database, serving as a topographical reference for Flanders.
- Ensured fast and qualitative delivery of topographic data from high-tech acquisition and processing to final submission via automated processes.
- Acted as a data quality control manager while working on an international project with multiple contractors for Cyprus and Dutch provinces to ensure correct data fusion and deliverance of topographic maps.
- Led several pilots and proof of concepts for innovative data acquisition, software evolutions, and data automation processes to implement in the business or specific projects.
Project History
Departmental Cloud Infrastructure Setup
The cloud infrastructure was created in AWS, composed of several accounts with general components and infrastructure to ensure a robust, centralized, and secure overall environment to house its business projects and applications.
The central landing zone with the implementation of core accounts and integration of business accounts was conducted, fulfilling the current and future needs of the business with a focus on Ingress, security, logging, monitoring, shared services, operations, backup, governance, and finances.
I utilized the following AWS services and applications: ALB, CI/CD, CodeCommit, CodeBuild, CodeDeploy, CodePipeline, CloudCheckr, CloudFormation, CloudTrail, CloudWatch, VPN, EBS, EC2, EFS, Elastic Beanstalk, FSx, GuardDuty, IAM, Lambda, Macie, NAT Gateway, RDS, Route 53, S3, Security Hub, SES, Storage Gateway, Systems Manager, Transit Gateway, VPC, WAF, WorkDocs, and WorkSpaces.
Cloud Migration of Virtual Environment
Migration of the traffic models processing on-premises infrastructure to the cloud, where they contributed to an objective and high-quality mobility policy for the Flemish government.
• A secure web-based private cooperation platform where around 50 team members could access a battery of processing instances to fulfill the calculations of traffic models
• 29 processing servers and 13 supporting servers
• 39 applications, custom applications, and technologies
• Several types of datastores regarding project storage (shared), personal storage, object storage, archive, and database instances
• Hybrid on-premises connection
Departmental GIS Program
Launch of a three-year GIS strategy with execution via a yearly program for an entity of the Flemish government's internal service provider in cooperation with all existing business units.
PROJECTS
• Design and deployment of the GIS data platform, GIS viewer, and GIS cooperation platform
• Integration and migration of several departmental GIS projects within the central infrastructure
• Creation, supervision, and governance of operational services and departmental GIS support services
• Data and metadata publication (INSPIRE)
• Organization of the central departmental GIS committee
• Yearly innovative track
• Central lines of communications with other Flemish government departments
• Training via external or internal courses, classes, and webinars
We used various infrastructural AWS services and GIS technologies, such as FME Server, FME Desktop, ESRI ArcMap, QGIS, MapStore, GeoServer, GeoNetwork, Spatineo, SharePoint integrations, and PostGIS database.
Education
Postgraduate Degree in Geo-ICT
University College Ghent (HoGent) - Gent, Belgium
Certifications
Project Management Professional (PMP)
Project Management Institute (PMI)
Certified Scrum Master
The Knowledge Academy
PRINCE2 Agile Practitioner Certification
Axelos
PRINCE2 Practitioner Certification
Axelos
Skills
Tools
Jira, Slack, Trello, CAD, Google Workspace, Web GIS, Asana, PostgreSQL, Confluence, SQL, FARO SCENE, Apache Maven, Jenkins
Paradigms
Agile, Kanban, Scrum, Servant Leadership, Agile Project Management, Change Management, Lean, DevOps, Spatial Databases, Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), PRINCE2
Platforms
ArcGIS, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Unix, Azure, Nexus
Other
Geographic Information Systems, Project Management, Data Processing, Communication, PRINCE2 Project Management, Scope Management, Budgeting, Scrumban, PMI, Cloud, GeoServer, FME, QGIS, Mobile Mapping, Microsoft 365, Cloud Infrastructure, Technical Project Monitoring, Project Planning, Sprint Planning, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Sprint Ceremonies, Stakeholder Management, Agile Program Management, Databases, Information & Communications Technology (ICT), Remote Sensing, Point Cloud Data, Risk Management, Leadership, Procurement, Lean Startups, Business Analysis, IT Strategy, Technical Project Management, UML, Data Quality, Remote Team Leadership, Governance, Planview, Software Development, Extreme Programming, Scrum of Scrums, ITIL, ArchiMate, Python, JavaScript, APIs, Web Services, Networks, UiPath, Product Management, Media, Cyclone, Orbit, Quality Auditing, CI/CD Pipelines, 3Scale API, DSDM, Project Management Professional (PMP)
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